


when i saw you, i fell in love;

by morallygreywaren



Series: what it means to be married [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, Established Relationship, F/F, Horny Crusaders, M/M, Mild repentance, Misunderstandings, Pre-Canon, and some bets, featuring:, idiots to lovers, it's the grand premiere of Andy and Quynh's 'soap opera by way of shared dreams', language barriers, tbh it's more, the JoexNicky edition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27883915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morallygreywaren/pseuds/morallygreywaren
Summary: Joe and Nickykill each otherfall in love. Andromache and Quynh make a few bets.Or: Immortality can get boring. Thank God Andromache and Quynh can tune in to the romantic dramedy that is the Yusuf-and-Nicolò post-crusades show every night by way of shared dreams, and become the most fed-up shippers in the history of the universe.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: what it means to be married [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2041723
Comments: 27
Kudos: 261





	when i saw you, i fell in love;

**Author's Note:**

> A prequel of sorts to [and you smiled, because you knew.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25263706) so obviously no prior knowledge is required, but if you _have_ read it, the last scene might be familiar ;)
> 
> A thousand thanks to [TeeDee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeeDee), my sword-fighting consultant, and [Avanie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avanie), the most patient beta reader anyone could hope for, who took this from the mess of an idea I sent her last week to where we are now. I maintain that I did more research for this fic than Greg Rucka ever did for the comics, but... that is arguably a fairly low bar.

_A flash of striking blue eyes. A mouth curled into a snarl under a dark beard._

_They are on horses, then on the ground, fighting, cutting others down around them until they come face to face with each other._

_The man with the dark beard strikes first, although it can’t be by much. Scimitar already raised, he goes for the fairer man’s neck, to jab or to cut. To kill, in any case. His eyes are narrowed, the other’s jaw set._

_They might be circling each other, but it is all happening so fast. He would only know that he got too close when it is already too late. As he sinks his scimitar into his opponent’s neck, the other one lunges forward, gripping his longsword with two hands. He impales the dark-haired man, longsword sinking right through his stomach as he himself is already bleeding out._

_They stumble and stagger with the weight of their weapons in their rapidly weakening arms until the force of the fairer man’s strike wins out, and they sink to the ground._

_Teeth clenched in pain, their faces are grimaces of hate, shock, and perhaps, when death becomes inevitable, regret._

_In death, we’re all the same. But they don’t know that yet._

Quynh jerks against Andromache, the force of the longsword attack from her dream startling her awake. That was a violent death; she’s aching all over. It feels almost like she was killed twice at the same time, one of the few death-related experiences she hasn’t actually experienced yet.

Next to her, Andromache is awake but breathing heavily. Even in the almost barely-there light from the dying embers of their fire, Quynh can tell Andromache’s eyes are curious and intense when they find hers.

“That was a beginner’s mistake,” Andromache says, sounding incredulous, “Why would he let him come so close in a sword fight?”

Quynh throws her head back and laughs into the night sky above them. _Of course_ Andromache’s first thought upon finding out that their scraggly band of mercenaries - their family - was growing, is to criticise the addition’s fighting style.

“Well, he’s going to have a lot of time to learn when he comes to,” Quynh replies. She still remembers her first death, defending the village she’d grown up in by shooting the invaders with her bow and arrow, dangling from a tree. It had been going well. It would have been better if she’d noticed earlier someone had set fire to the tree though. She’d panicked, fallen from the tree, and her next memory after that is the dream in which she’d seen Andromache for the first time. Devastatingly beautiful, beatifically deadly. 

It had taken way too long for them to find each other. “Where do you think we need to go?” Quynh asks.

Andromache exhales noisily and scoots closer to her. “Hard to say. It looked like he died in battle, but then-”

“So have we all,” Quynh sighs. _All_ , she thinks, wants to laugh, almost. There have only been three of them in all the world, in all the history they know, hardly enough to say for certain that they had to be soldiers. “Do we know of a place with a war going on at the moment?”

“If nothing else comes to mind, it’s usually Europe,” Andromache says. They haven’t been to Europe for a few hundred years and Quynh thinks neither of them is particularly keen to go back at the moment. “Have they ever not been at war?”

Quynh chuckles and laces their hands together. “You would know better than me, my heart.”

“Because I was born closer to Europe than you?”

“I was going to say because you are older, but sure.”

Quynh gets pinched in the side for her trouble, but she just laughs until Andromache can be bothered to shut her up with a kiss. Quynh is not going to pretend this wasn’t her goal all along.

“It’s going to be strange, not being alone anymore,” Andromache says after a while. Lykon has been dead almost as many years as he was with them at this point. Quynh admits she can scarcely remember what it was like, having to share Andromache with someone, only that sometimes, she misses Lykon so fiercely she thinks it is going to tear her apart.

“Do you think they’ll be like him?” she asks.

“I don’t know if anyone could ever be like Lykon,” Andromache says, and pulls Quynh closer to her so Quynh can feel her heartbeat. “Lykon wouldn’t have let anyone get close enough to cut his throat to begin with.”

“What?” Quynh sits up and turns to see Andromache frowning at her.

“What what?”

“What do you mean ‘cut his throat’? He died from a sword to the stomach, I could feel it everywhere.”

Andromache shakes her head slowly, sitting up as well. “No, that was the man who killed him. He took the other fighter out as he was dying, I could feel him bleeding out from his neck.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. Did you not feel it too?“

Andromache and Quynh don’t argue often and this is no ground for fighting. Quynh shakes her head, but then shrugs. “I guess we will see who it is in our dreams tomorrow.”

Andromache nods and pulls Quynh back down. The dawn is still some time away, and they might as well try and make up for a little of the sleep they lost.

“I bet you it’s the dark-haired one, though,” Quynh says.

“Oh?” Andromache’s voice is a pleasant rumble down Quynh’s spine where she whispers into her ear. “What am I going to win when it turns out that guy’s dead tomorrow though?”

Quynh smiles to herself as she closes her eyes and allows herself to sink against Andromache. “I’ll feed both our horses for ten days,” she says, “But if I were you, I wouldn’t count on it yet.”

* * *

_The dark-haired fighter wakes to the image of his enemy’s longsword sliding back out of his gut. His skin knits back together and the pain recedes until all that remains is the angry breathlessness of being crushed underneath an enemy’s corpse._

_He is confused, or perhaps that is an understatement. He’d been sure he was going to die. He saw himself get stabbed, dying on the other man’s longsword, and until moments ago, he probably didn’t know such a state could be anything but permanent._

_Not that there is a lot of time to adjust to this thought, when the dead man on top of him opens his eyes._

_They stare at each other for a moment. There is wonder there, and something on the verge of stunned recognition. Then the fair-skinned man snarls._

_He looks like a wolf as he tightens his grip on his longsword again, pushing himself up. The other reaches for his scimitar, but in the time he grapples for it, the fairer one has pinned him to the ground again. A knee just below his sternum. He can move, but it hurts like hell._

_“Stay dead, this time,” the man atop him growls, plunging his longsword straight towards his heart. If he sees the scimitar headed for the side of his face, it’s too late._

Andromache doesn’t need any words when she finds Quynh’s eyes. They’re both thinking the same thing. Namely: ‘ _I was right!’_ and ‘ _But you were, too.’_

The other thing Andromache doesn’t know how to put into words yet, not even thoughts, so it’s Quynh who speaks first.

“ _How_?”

Andromache sighs, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. If only she knew. It has been a long time since Lykon, that much is true. It’s been just the two of them for so long, longer than Lykon was ever with them, that Andromache has started to wonder, in some of the quieter moments, when they were going to start dreaming about the next immortal. _If_ they were going to start dreaming about the next immortal, or if whatever power it was that granted their immortality had run out.

Evidently, it hasn’t. And it is now overcompensating.

Quynh pushes herself up. “I’d say they’re lucky that they don’t have to figure immortality out by themselves, but-” She shrugs, her beautiful face torn somewhere between a smile and a frown.

“I think they’re going to be figuring out that they can’t die anymore pretty quickly, if they’re going to keep killing each other.” Andromache groans as she sits up. She can still feel their deaths everywhere on her body. “But I’ve died plenty of times myself; I don’t need to share anyone else’s anymore.”

Quynh gives her an indulgent smile. Andromache felt all her deaths before they found one another, and the part of her that has a shred of sentimentality left has always hoped that those would be the only ones she’d share.

Lykon, after his first death, miraculously managed to keep himself out of danger until they found him. (He only stopped being the most sensible one once they found him.)

“I guess they’ll just need someone to show them ropes. And knock some sense into their skulls. Maybe not in that order, though,” Quynh says and clambers to her feet, offering Andromache a hand up. “What do you say? Shall we ride west?”

Andromache is not in a hurry. If they’re going to start travelling with these men, if they’re going to be closer to her and Quynh than family they need to get along. And Andromache is no Lykon, she wasn’t made for diplomatic missions. But for now, she smiles as she lets herself be pulled up. “Are you still going to feed my horse?”

* * *

_“I’ve been abandoned by God. The only constant in my life now is killing you.”_

_They’re only wrestling at this point, their weapons and parts of their armour likely taken off their corpses on the battlefield before they had a chance to come back. There’s not much risk of that anymore, though, they haven’t been among soldiers of either of their armies for a while now._

_The walls of the city that used to loom in the distance are long gone. They are alone, and they are grappling with each other, like drowning men over a life raft._

_The dark-haired man’s hands are on their way to close around the other’s neck again, but the fair-skinned man punches him in the face, hard, and they both topple to the ground. Writhing in the sand under the unforgiving sun, the only sound in the air their groans and cries as they claw at each other’s forms, knock heads, lock arms. When they still, it looks almost like a truce. But every peace is deceptive._

_“Allah has chosen me. But if it is not to kill you, then what for?” He surprises himself and the fairer man when he starts crying. Sits back on his haunches and sobs, racked with frustration at the futility of his endeavour, and that perhaps he can’t avoid what he swore never to do anymore._

_The fair-haired man watches in something like awe as the other stands, wipes his tears, and offers him a hand up. Knows he is going to take what is offered, but it’s their eyes that meet first. There is no trust there, but an intensity that doesn’t break even when they’re both standing facing each other again, breathing hard._

_The dark-haired man splays both of his hands over his chest. “Yusuf,” he says, head inclined._

_The fairer man watches him, warily, before mirroring his position, hands over his chest, and repeats: “Yusuf.”_

_The other laughs. “No, no, that’s not a greeting, that’s my name.” He points at himself. “Yu-suf,” he repeats, then points at his opponent. His companion. “And you?”_

_Comprehension is slow to rise on the other man’s face, but he finally complies. “Nicolò,” he says finally, pointing at himself. “I’m Nicolò.”_

“I have their names!” Quynh gasps as she wakes up. Andromache startles, even though she had clearly been watching her. Not that Quynh minds. “The European is called Nicolò, and the one with the dark beard is named Yusuf. And it looks like they might have _finally_ stopped fighting?”

She can scarcely believe it herself.

Andromache mutters something under her breath that Quynh is not sure she wants to understand.

“What did you say?”

Andromache laughs. “Oh, I was just wondering what they were doing instead. If they’ve moved on to screwing each other like they so very clearly want to. Would be about time, too, I can’t take the tension much longer.”

Trust Andromache to make a crude remark about just about anything. She was never a seafarer, but she always had a mouth like a sailor.

“I’m afraid it’s just a truce for now.”

"A pity. It would have been a great way to resolve all that melodrama." Andromache shrugs.

"If only."

"I'm willing to bet they will though." Andromache twirls a strand of hair around her finger, looking into the distance, but her eyes are twinkling with mirth. "They have to fuck it out before we get to them."

"Well, that's a terrible bet to offer, because that much is obvious." Quynh untangles Andromache's hair until the other woman looks at her face. "I'm willing to bet you that they won’t start screwing before their mortal lives would have been over.”

Andromache squints at her: “So not for another forty, fifty years?”

Quynh shrugs.

“What if we get to them before then?” Andromache asks.

“Then you would have won or lost either way.” Quynh loves when Andromache gives her an opportunity to feel smart, and if Andromache’s indulgent smile is anything to go by, she’s not entirely alone in this.

“Alright. What do I get if I win?”

Quynh gets up to stride over to where Andromache is standing, looping her arms around her neck and blinking up her. “Don’t you already have all that you could desire?”

Andromache leans down and kisses her, deep and much filthier than the hour of day usually calls for. Not that that’s ever stopped them before. “I still like winning things.”

“I know, my heart,” Quynh sighs, before kissing her again. “If you win, I’ll give you my pendant.”

* * *

_They start travelling with each other. It’s hard to say what there is between them now, but it is not quite camaraderie, and still very far from friendship. But years have passed, and it might be that they know now that this is the only companionship they’ll be able to keep now. They were both rejected by their former brothers in arms, and meeting on the battle ground again, away from everyone else, they have this:_

_Each other’s names. And a shaky truce._

_“Where do you think we might go?” Yusuf asks in his native tongue. They are sitting at a campfire across from each other, the only thing they can see each other’s eyes where they reflect the flames. “I was thinking we should head to the sea.”_

_Nicolò stares at him with an unreadable expression, and Yusuf mimes waves with his hands._

_“The sea?” Nicolò asks, but in Ligurian. “Do you know where it is?”_

_Yusuf smiles, and makes a walking motion with two of his fingers towards the waves. “If we find a ship, I’d be able to get home. Only I do not know where the nearest harbour town is.”_

_Nicolò nods curtly. “If you can find the nearest harbour, we can get on a ship.”_

_He mimes the form of a ship with his hands to an encouraging hum from Yusuf._

_“A ship, yes!” Yusuf says, “Do you know where we can find one?”_

_Nicolo smiles and nods at him, uncomprehending. “I live by the sea in Genova. As long as we find the sea, I’ll be able to get home. I am happy to travel there with you, for I don’t know where we are.”_

_Yusuf is smiling broadly now, and holds out a hand over the fire for Nicolò to shake. Their eyes meet for a short moment before their fingers do, and they both smile. “I am glad that you know the way to the sea. I have been lost for a while now, and this is how I’ll be able to get home,” Yusuf says._

_And so they become travel companions for years without reaching the sea. The only journey they’re on that does not go in a circle seems to be that towards one another._

_Where they used to watch each other with eagle-eyed suspicion, unable to sleep without a weapon firmly clutched between their fingers, their sight is now clear. Sleep comes easier now they dare turn their backs, ready to defend each other and not just themselves._

_They build a routine, even if they still don’t fully understand each other._

_Yusuf will kindle a fire while Nicolò sets up their bedrolls, then Nicolò will decide which of their rations to use for their evening meal while Yusuf scours their surroundings for threats and forages for food._

_Sometimes, they are able to get books to read or paper to draw on and pass the evening like that, but usually, they will sit side by side after they’ve eaten and stare into the fire, or up at the sky, before they each pray and turn in for the night._

_“Thank you for the food,” Yusuf says, “I don’t tell you this often because I’m never sure if you understand, but it is my favourite part of the day, returning to camp to see what you’ve prepared.”_

_He’s not looking at Nicolò, so he doesn’t see the small, confused smile playing around his lips. “I’m glad you let me travel with you,” Nicolò says after a while, “I should say this more often even though you don’t understand me, but it is no small kindness you’re showing me despite everything I’ve done, and I will always try and do good by you from now on.”_

_Yusuf smiles at him before leaning back to look at the stars twinkling in their ageless grace above them. “They’re beautiful tonight,” he says, “I find that looking at the stars comforts me. They’ve been there for as long as I can remember, and the poets have written about them for hundreds of years before I was born. I don’t know what will happen to me, if I can truly never die, but I’m glad I’ll have the stars by my side.” He chances a glance at Nicolò as the other man lies down next to him. “The stars and you, of course.”_

_They stay like that until Yusuf’s eyelids begin to flutter and he falls asleep, never noticing that Nicolò does not look at the stars._

_“They’re old and undying, like us,” Nicoloò whispers, “and very beautiful, although perhaps, even in their magnitude, not as beautiful as you.”_

“I almost wish they’d go back to killing each other for a change,” Andromache says the next time their conversation turns to Yusuf and Nicolò. It is late at night and she has Quynh in her arms, not for the first time extraordinarily glad that they worked out what they were to each other _much_ , much faster.

“Really?”

She is tempted to insist, but... “No. Don’t you find this _painful_ to watch, knowing what they’re both saying?”

Quynh looks like she considers this for a moment. “I think the word you’re looking for is ‘hilarious,’ my heart.”

Andromache shoots her a look, but she can feel Quynh’s heart beat against her own from where she sprawls half-atop her when she laughs, so naturally, there is no heat in it.

They have figured out by now that Yusuf and Nicolò fought on opposing sides when the Pope urged the faithful to reclaim the holy city of Jerusalem. If the merchants who gave them this information are to be trusted, the next one is already underway at this point.

Quynh sighs on her chest. “Do you think they’ll manage to teach each other eventually?”

Andromache smirks as she pushes herself onto her elbows. “You should take a good look at how Nicolò looks at Yusuf next time. I’m not sure how easy it is to learn anything when there’s no blood left in your brain.”

Quynh swats her arm for it, but even if Yusuf is the only person they’ve seen Nicolò look at, Andromache is sure she’s right. It’s impossible he’d look at everyone like he’s just swallowed his tongue.

“Don’t give them such a hard time,” Quynh chides, “We were lucky because you already spoke Vietnamese when I became immortal.”

 _Ah_. That. “I- sure,” Andromache clears her throat. “I already spoke Vietnamese.”

Or at the very least she made sure she did by the time she found Quynh. Not that Quynh needed to know that.

“Andromache?” Quynh narrows her eyes.

“Hmm?”

“Did you learn Vietnamese so we could talk to each other when you found me?”

“I knew some of the basics beforehand!” It is no use of course, the knowing smirk on Quynh’s face is already firmly in place.

“An.” She takes Andromache’s hands and pulls them into her lap. “That is the sweetest thing you’ve ever done for me.”

Andromache sits up, her eyes trained firmly on Quynh’s lovely face. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“Nothing I’ve done in the thousands of years since matches it?” She leans close to Quynh now, so close she can feel her breath tickling her neck, and giggles.

“Hmm, I don’t know.”

Andromache knows a challenge when she hears one, and smiles wickedly. “Well, I’ll have to remind you, won’t I?”

* * *

_The air between them is alive with tension, the sun above them clear and hot. There is no river anywhere near, no water at all, and they’re shouting at each other._

_“I don’t know why we’re still going this way, we’re never getting to the sea this way,” Nicolò snarls, “It’s obvious you have no idea what you’re doing.”_

_“Stupid Frank,” Yusuf spits back, though he doesn’t understand the exact words being spoken. “It was so easy to come to these lands, wage war on innocent people to try and claim what was never yours! But now? Now you’ve lost your way and can’t return!”_

_They’re angry, but more than that, they’re frustrated. With their seemingly endless journey, going in circles and not getting anywhere, and something else as well. It’s been there all along, and not it is bubbling over._

_They’ve stopped walking in favour of glaring at each other. “Not for the first time do I wish I could have just killed you all those years ago,” Yusuf spits, and reaches for his scimitar._

_“Oh, I see how it is, you want to go back to that?” Nicolò’s hand is at the hilt of his longsword in an instant, but neither of them draws._

_They’re too close, far too close to use their weapons effectively. And what’s the point of killing each other when you know it won’t take?_

_Instead, Yusuf reaches for Nicolò’s collar as if to butt him in the head. Nicolò makes a fist like he will punch him in the face. Both look surprised when he cards them through Yusuf’s curls instead, and then they’re kissing. Hard and forceful enough to topple to the ground. It is an angry kiss, more teeth than warmth, so close to biting that it has to hurt even when your wounds heal instantly._

_Only when Yusuf reaches down to shove his hand in Nicolò’s trousers does Nicolò raise a laconic eyebrow at him. “As far as methods of killing go, this one’s a first.”_

_“Shut up,” Yusuf says, and then makes sure he does. Repeatedly._

Quynh wakes to the feeling of her body singing all over. She glances at Andromache who’s taken second watch, and is currently whittling away at a small piece of wood with her favourite knife.

Quynh takes a deep breath in, then counts in her head. It’s not been enough time yet, for her to win the bet. Based on her memories, and the phantom touch still tingling on her lips and between her legs, this particular instance does not feel like something that’d be repeated again overly soon. They’ll likely wake in the morning, and stammer their regret, and take some time to repeat it in earnest.

Andromache may be the better judge of character between the two of them, but Quynh is an excellent gambler when it matters.

“You’re awake,” Andromache says as Quynh walks over to her. “Sleep well? Dream anything nice?”

Quynh hums and pours herself into Andromache’s lap, arms closing tightly around her shoulders. “Nothing special,” she says, nosing Andromache’s ear. “But I woke up with some great ideas.”

“Oh?” Andromache gets rid of her knife and grips Quynh’s hips as Quynh rolls them against her. It might be playing dirty, but it’s not like Andromache gets nothing out of it.

* * *

_Yusuf draws Nicolò sometimes. He draws many things, when he can find the material, but Nicolò’s face is what stands out. They’re quick sketches, done when Yusuf is alone for a moment or two, and should be rough for all their worth, but there is a solemn tenderness in each line still. He keeps them hidden in his pack, doesn’t show them to Nicolò’s even when the man returns to their camp with that small smile playing around his lips._

_Nicolò goes to the market sometimes, even if he is bad at bartering. The only thing he’ll barter for are pomegranates, rich and ruby-red, although he never eats them himself. Just hands them to Yusuf, wordlessly, and basks in the smile the gesture sends his way._

_It is like watching a wave build and build, never cresting. No wonder they can’t reach the sea._

_They’re in a market town and Yusuf speaks to the woman who owns the abode about renting a room for the night._

_“What are you after?” she asks in Greek._

_“A room with two beds, if you can spare one.”_

_She jerks her thumb towards Nicolò. “You with him?”_

_Yusuf inclines his head in assent, as Nicolò watches on, an expression like he’s swallowed his tongue back on his face._

_“Your travelling companion? Partner? Friend?”_

_“He is all that,” Yusuf assures her, “Now do you have a room for us?”_

_“Two rooms with one bed each, is what I can offer,” the innkeeper replies, “but it’ll cost double.”_

_She drags her eyes across their dusty clothes, and Yusuf looks like he’s about to say something rather rude to her, when Nicolò cuts in: “We’ll take one of those, thank you.” He speaks perfect Greek and Yusuf stares at him, and stares, and then he starts to laugh._

_Throws an arm around Nicolò’s shoulders as they stagger from the inn to nearest tavern._

_“I cannot believe this,” he says, “all these years, we could have been speaking Greek! Or using it to teach each other our native languages! Not that I will complain, talking at you was still a marked improvement from how we… met.”_

_Nicolò flinches, but Yusuf only slaps his shoulder and finds them a table. It turns out that what they have in common after all these years travelling with each other extends to the thoughts they can now give voice to, but there is much to catch up on for the years before they knew each other._

_They weren’t friends before the evening, not really. They couldn’t be. But they are when they’re leaving the tavern, arms slung around each other, raucous with laughter and new found family._

_That night, when they lie next to each other in bed, it is Nicolò who turns to lie on his back, stares at the ceiling and says: “I dream of two women, sometimes.”_

_Yusuf raises an eyebrow at him, but there is mirth in his voice. “I’m sure many men do. Tell me, are they tall? Muscular? Have dark hair?”_

_Nicolò snickers, but shakes his head. “No, not like that. These dreams, they are… they appear different from my other dreams. I see lands I’ve never visited in them, and always the same two women, travelling on horseback. They are fighters, like us.”_

_“One taller than the other, and fairer, although they both have dark hair. And in all these years, their faces have not changed?” Yusuf completes his thoughts. “I dream of them too.”_

_“Who do you think they are?” Nicolò asks, “when I first dreamed of them, I used to think they were a pair of avenging angels, empyrean and undying, and I was afraid that they were looking for me, to make me pay for this strange gift.”_

_Yusuf turns to face him, and places a hand on his forearm in comfort. “I do believe they might be looking for us, even though I can’t be sure. But I don’t think they are angels, or out to get us.”_

_Nicolò’s eyes flicker from where Yusuf’s hand rests on his arm to Yusuf’s face. “Do you think they’re like us?”_

_“Yeah.” Yusuf smiles at him, warm and drunk and dim in the moonlight, but he might as well be the sun. “I think they are.”_

At a river many miles away, Quynh and Andromache are washing their clothes in the gentle sunlight of another morning. They are not riding that day, but that doesn’t keep life free from chores, and Quynh hasn’t won any bets to get out of them lately.

“You know it just occurred to me,” Quynh says, “they never dreamt of each other. All they ever see is us.”

“As someone who’s been exclusively dreaming about them for a few decades, I would not mind that _at all_.”

Quynh flings some river water in the general direction of Andromache’s smirk. “You’re never going to let Nicolò live down that he thought we were angels at first, will you?”

Andromache dodges the water with a body roll, only barely making sure her undergarments don’t get taken by the stream. “Absolutely not. I will also never cease to tell Yusuf he can’t make a face like _that_ at people and then promptly go to sleep. Poor Nicoloò, he’s probably awake still.”

“In either sense of the word,” Quynh remarks. “But that’s why I said they need at least another twenty years. It took them forty years just to realise they both speak the same language, what do you expect?”

Andromache sighs and holds out her hand for Quynh’s clothes so she can lay them out to dry. “On bad days, I think you might be right, on good days… On good days I think it might have already happened and we just haven’t seen it.”

* * *

_Yusuf strolls back into their camp, or at least the spot between two trees by a river where Nicolò is cleaning their weapons._

_“I spoke to a merchant,” he says, sitting down next to him and plunging his feet into the cold stream. “We’re a fair way off from the sea still, but he’s shown me the way. If we leave tomorrow we could make it before the moon is full again.”_

_Nicolò finishes polishing his sword and packs them away. When he turns back to Yusuf, he is patting the space next to him as if asking Nicolò to join._

_They sit next to each other, the evening sun warming their cheeks, the river cooling their calves._

_“Thank you,” Nicolò says. “That was very kind of you.”_

_Yusuf shakes his head, but turns it into a shrug midway through. “It felt right. You always do kind things for me.”_

_Nicolò stares at his hands in his lap. They’re twisted in knots. “I haven’t always,” he says, but it’s barely more than a whisper._

_“But you do now, and that matters more to me than anything else.” Yusuf’s hand comes to rest on Nicolò’s thigh, and he squeezes it until Nicolò looks up at him. “If we have to be in this world forever, I’m glad it’s with you.”_

_“Yusuf, I-“_

_“You don’t need to say anything, Nicolò, I understand.”_

_Nicolò swallows, but everything is still heavy around them, the mix of the heat and the cold suddenly dizzying. He looks like a picture of himself rendered speechless by Yusuf’s careful, sketching hands._

_“You do?”_

_“I think so.” Yusuf smiles at Nicolò. There is no one in the world he smiles at like that._

_Nicolò stares at him for a moment longer._

_“I don’t think you do,” he says finally._

_There is heat on their faces, cold on their legs, but their entire bodies light up when he leans in to kiss Yusuf._

Quynh wouldn’t choose to come back from the dream so quickly – it is nice, this feeling of warmth blooming everywhere in her body from her lips – but Andromache shaking her awake.

“Did you see?” she whispers the second Quynh opens her eyes. “Did you see, did you see?”

The second Quynh is actually awake, she can’t help but smile. Andromache likes to put up a tough exterior, like she couldn’t care less about anything, but it’s just that, a front presented to the world. It’s not true, not really, when matters of the heart are concerned.

“They finally figured it out!” Andromache says, a little squeal in her tone before she can compose herself. “That felt like it took forever, and you know I’m not someone to throw that word around lightly.”

Quynh smiles again, then pushes herself just enough to draw Andromache into a slow and languid kiss. It’s nice, when you’re still riding out second-hand hormones.

She’s sitting up fully by the time they break apart, and Quynh uses the opportunity to draw her pendant off her neck and places it into Andromache’s palm.

“No, no, my heart, it’s been too long,” Andromache says, “you’ve won this one.”

As if the light in her eyes doesn’t nearly kill Quynh; it’ll take some time to come back from that death. Quynh pushes a strand of her hair behind her ear, and fixes her eyes on the pendant in Andromache’s hand as she tries to keep it there.

“Yes,” she says, “about that-”

* * *

_They make it to their ship. It’s taken them longer than anticipated, but not all that long in the grand scheme of things. They have a slice of eternity left, it’s no wonder they chose to fall in love first._

_Yusuf and Nicolò are huddled in rough blankets under the night sky at the bow of the ship, the only light the stars above them. There’s a stillness between them, but where once the silence was laden, it now holds peace._

_“It’s about time,” Yusuf says at some point, a quiet thought for a usually boisterous man. “Many times, these days, I have been thinking, that ordinarily I should like to ask for your hand.”_

_He doesn’t say anything after that, doesn’t even look at Nicolò, so it must come as a shock when Nicolò drops his hand on his face._

_“Here,” he says, voice carefully devoid of mirth. Too carefully._

_Yusuf scrabbles at his knuckles. “What’s this?”_

_“My hand,” Nicolò says, as Yusuf pulls it off his face. He closes his fingers around Yusuf’s, rests their entwined hands on his chest. “You can have it.”_

_The stillness spreads between them again, but it’s not only peaceful. It’s warm. And time is such a slippery construct anyway. Best to focus on the things that matter._

Quynh is already laughing when she wakes, the sound of it rousing Andromache from her sleep. It remains the best sound to wake up to.

Andromache shakes her head as she stretches her arms over her head. “Truly, how can someone be so in love yet so oblivious?”

“I like him.” Of course Quynh does. Andromache rolls her eyes at her, but she doesn’t bother to keep the fondness from her gaze.

“The two of you together will be unbearable.”

“Oh, yes,” Quynh says, and tackles Andromache to her bedroll. “But you’ll have Yusuf.”

“And I’ll have you.”

“Yes. And you’ll have Nicolò, too. That’s what family is about.”

They make their way to the port, arriving just a ship from the West pulls up. And maybe, just maybe, Nicky was right. Maybe this is coming home.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr @ [morallygreywaren](www.morallygreywaren.tumblr.com/ask) and shout at me about immortals in love.
> 
> Also! If you have read [and you smiled because you knew.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25263706) here is an angsty extra for you. Don't read unless you a) read that and b) want the angst! Don't say you haven't been warned!
> 
> Ready?
> 
>  _Andy watches Joe, Nicky and Booker drunkenly stumble down the_ Heerengracht _. Booker has started singing something in French and horribly off-key, which he's getting a lot of attention from other people traipsing the streets of Amsterdam at night for. Joe and Nicky don't care. They are too happy to notice._
> 
> _She turns to lean over the railing of the canal, looking down at the water, the stars reflecting back at her. "You were right, my love," she says and her fingers close around the pendant hanging from her neck. "You always were in the end." But it's only Andy's own reflection staring back at her._


End file.
